Naturhistorisches Museum Wien Vienna Reviews

I stopped by the Naturhistorisches Museum in Vienna simply because I didn't have much else to do and I'm not a big lover of the arts so it felt better to go here than any other museum. Because, let's face it... I can't visit Vienna without visiting at least one museum.

The musuem was huge! They had several big halls, at least 30, divided into different categories. They had everything from dinosaurs to birds, plants, fish, diffrent types of stones and crystals, meteorites, animals and things showing human evolution including old weapons and pottery.

I thought that the biggest and the most impressing Natural History Museum is placed in London. What a surprise! The one in Vienna is as good as the London's Museum.

The building is easy to find - it is near the Imperial Palace HOFBURG, in front of its twin - Kunstmuseum.

The museum was founded by Francis Stephen of Lorraine, the husband of Maria Theresa, whose statue is located on the square in front of the Naturhistorisches Museum. In fact science was for him more interesting than politics. So far the Vienna museum has accumulated more than 20 million artifacts.

On the left, slightly hidden in the basement, reside live specimens of fauna and flora - aquariums and terrariums are full of colourful fish/reptiles/amphibians/birds. Their cages resemble their natural habitat f.e. the Amazonian jungle and coral reefs.

Walking into an area, which is marked on the map with symbol of a precious crystals (right entry) you can see four rooms filled with stones / meteorites / minerals. A nice thing for me(and I think for other Poles) are several large blocks of salt and enormous salt obelisk from... Wieliczka. Perhaps it is a feast for connoisseurs and passionate, but after crossing 2 rooms it was enough for me.

Moving on from hall to hall you can admire the fossils of early life on Earth, a giant dinosaur skeletons, including a charming classics - T. Rex

There's also famous Venus of Willendorf, skulls "from the chimpanzee to Homo sapiens " and

of course stuffed or submerged in formalin various forms of life - a roaring lion, millions of birds. There are animals which have become extinct (dingo dog, kiwi), and those that are not so easy to watch, can be see through the lens of the microscope. It is a pity that there are no signatures at all in English. Aaaah .... during really hot days Natural History Museum is a place where you can find a relief :)